A further thought on plastic bags and shopping

well, it's friday which mean the weekly grocery shopping at Tescos.

i was trying to work out the cheapest way of buying the citrus fruit i like (large clementine/mandarins). they have the offer of 2 nets for £2 which usually give 8 - 10 fruit. but then there's the value citrus fruit net for £1.29. but then i thought about buying them loose and am going to look into the cost of that.

however one of the things that put me off buying loose is those stupid little clear plastic bags, great for lining the bathroom bin but we really don't need any more at the moment. then i thought about how many of those i use each week for the shopping. Pears, brocolli are two other we buy loose and also sometimes tomatoes. they provide paper bags for the mushrooms so that the mushrooms don't sweat - so why not use them for other veg - although the paper bags do have a plastic insert. i mean is it purely so the checkout people can see whats in them? if so what is the difficulty in peeking into the top of a paper bag.

however many young checkout teenagers don't even know what the fruit and veg are! i read on the BBC Food message board about one teenager asking a customer to confirm that what was in the bag was a leek! i can understand with the new exotic fruit and veg they may not know what they are (although surely if you work in a shop you should know the products they stock). for example plantains, moolis, eddoes, pomelos are some that i have had to explain to the person on the checkout.

anyway i'm getting side tracked, the point of my post was that today when i go to tescos i am NOT going to use any of those silly plastic bags for the loose fruit. but then i was thinking "how am i going to put the fruit loose in the trolley without it getting bruised and rolling around. so i think my plan is to put a basket on top on my trolley, or i may find a box home here to put in the trolley so they are separate. i think that makes more sense them i can simply take them home in that too.

maybe one day i'll have to guts to leave ALL the packaging at the checkout when i do the shopping......not in the near future i fear though. and anyway if they stop all the packaging how am i going to get my green clubcard points at the recycling centre? which of course then turn into vouchers which i am saving for a big treat i think rather than spend them on little things. In this last quarters statement i got about 160 green points which is all from the recycling centre at tescos. now its 4 items per point so thats 640 items!!!